SW - Orion 6 - Episode 1 – Dawn of a new era
by RegnarkMalar
Summary: In an Alternate Star Wars Future, 500 years through. A new generation of power spreads over the Galaxy. The Republic, The New Order, the Sith, the Jedi are loosing the war against the Federation. Built with lies the federation is, the Jedi are hunted again and Zane Daroot escapes the invasion force of his planet. What future waits for him...
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

From above, an exposed face under the rubble wakes up, knowing he is trapped under it, in desperation he tries to dig himself out. A dark brown haired man, his name, Zane Daroot, the left side of his face is covered in blood dripping from his left eye, opening his eyelid was painful forcing him to keep it shut. Zane looked his surroundings for any evidence on where he was at but he couldn't see nothing that could help him know his location, debris and overcast clouds all the way up to the horizon.

He stood up and climbs a nearby hill to get a better view of the landscape, no vegetation, cloudy, ruined buildings, but at the distance… he sees various silhouettes approaching from far away, as they get closer he gets a better view of the shapes and are very similar to droids called interceptor hounds. Their body structure measures bigger than a typical dog, measuring 1.5 meters tall by 3 meters long and they literally run like dogs, their design are built for military use and to hunt targets swiftly and quick at a distance of 30 kilometers away in a short period of time. Also excellent to hunt smaller to medium targets, he could see the orange light from their skulls, usually they never turn them on when they are on the hunt to stay visually undetected. Zane looks to his right and sees a nearby structure that is intact one kilometer away, without hesitation he runs towards it.

Unarmed and defenseless against seven droids he slides down the hill and ran towards the building through a labyrinth of ruined buildings. Zane could hear the clanking metal of the droids getting closer and when he manages to reach one of the access doors, he slams against the door but it didn't budge while injuring his right arm. Zane looked around and grabs a thick iron rebar and tries to break the door open, the first droid that appears stops him, surprising him from behind. Zane turns around and slams the rebar against the droid's head breaking its visual sensor device leaving it blind, a second came in running and jumps, it flies through the air, Zane ducked and it slams against the door breaking it open.

More of them continued to appear, Zane used the rebar as a spear to keep the droids away from him, he hits one of them various times and lands one at the joints but the rebar gets stuck, while Zane tries to free it, the last droid surrounded by the rest of the droids blocking him, the one with the stuck rebar breaks it in half and opens its mouth creating a shrieking noise trying to threaten Zane. Another droid swiftly moves to Zane's rear and uses its tail to slash Zane's entire back making him fall to his knees, it attacks for a second time and a third time slashing his back, when he fell to the ground the droid strikes for a fourth time but Zane's reaction is to catch the tail, grabs hold and he punches the droid in the head section while injuring his hand, the droid pushed him back to the ground. Zane felt his chest getting pressed down, border lining of being crushed, then a sudden rush of energy came from inside Zane then releases his electric force power against the surrounding droids by disabling them.

He stood up and enters the building through the broken door, he encounters the droid that slammed through the door minutes ago. The front claw pierces through his lower chest but Zane manages to stop it barely missing any vital organs. Zane forces it out but the droid grabbed him, raised him to the air and slammed him to the ground, the droid repeats it for a second time. He tried to force push the droid but his strength wasn't enough to keep it away from him, while on the ground he sees a sculpture hanging from the ceiling, he raised his hand and used his force powers to pull it from the ceiling then lands it on top of the droid by completely crushing it.

Zane got up and kept moving, runs through the hallway until he finds an open accessway, he steps in to a dark room but he felt that the floor is missing from underneath his foot and the weight of his body went forward falling to a precipice, he grabs hold to the ledge of the doorway but he felt his body dragged downwards, he falls and loses any sense of direction. Faster and faster he went falling in to the unknown until he slams in to a surface, hitting it wasn't as hard as concrete, he felt a liquid and gelatinous substance under him accompanied with a horrible smell. Zane couldn't see anything, the strange substance covered his face and his entire body..

When he cleared part of his face, Red, red is the only color he sees, the light, the surface, the sky, it is everywhere, he sees something under the ground and pulls a hand, he crawls away and when he had a better clear sight, the whole area is filled with corpses, he used his clothes to clean his entire face and tries to confirm at what he is looking at, Zane is sitting on a sea of dead people, millions of them as far his eyes could see. He stood up and tried to get his bearings… he didn't knew his location, he wasn't at the same planet, then… he hears someone crying, he follows the sound. Zane searches around until he sees a small hand trying to crawl out, he approaches and pulls a little human girl with black hair and extreme pale skin.

Zane tries to comfort the little gir, he checks if she's injured, he asked who she was and how she ended in this location but she didn't gave an answer but something distracts Zane from behind, someone started to speak behind him, an ancient dialect that hasn't been spoken for over 30,000 years, when he looked behind him, no one was there and when he returns his sight towards the little girl he was holding a dead corpse that has rotten away for many years, startled… he drops it and raised his sight, he sees a woman in front of him, but she didn't had a normal face, there wasn't any characteristics of a mouth, nose, eyes, just a humanoid body that just had characteristic of a female human.

"Who are you… Or what are you?" Zane asked her and continued. "How do you know the language Da'lith?" He questions her by recognizing the ancient language even he doesn't speak it. She raises her arm with an open hand pointing it at Zane, a black substance started to spill out of her hand forming a sharp metallic weapon. Once out it floats on the air, controlling it with her mind. She said something in Da'lith and in an instant she swiftly moved behind him, Zane couldn't react in time and she strikes using her first hitting Zane with a blow to the head knocking him face down to the ground. When he tried to get up, his right hand is struck from behind piercing it against the ground.

The woman grabs Zane from the head and pulls him up, Zane force pulled up to his hand a sharp stone then slams it right on her face but she didn't even flinched, Zane kept pushing the stone further down her face but had no effect, she grabbed his left hand and with extreme force crushed it. Zane screams out of the intense pain then without any effort she throws him 30 meters away, removes the stone out of her face and throws it back to Zane with extreme force penetrating his left leg.

She approaches Zane, on the ground he started to laugh and said… "I know a few who would love to meet a woman like you." Zane surprised her by using large broken pole with a sharp end, attacks her but she willingly receives the sharp end through her hand but breaks it when she closed her fist. She throws the broken piece to the ground and in a final blow using her own weapon that came from her body stabs Zane directly to his heart.

The woman stared down at him for a minute, Zane didn't had the strength to speak while he tried to figure out how he is still alive. Her face started to change until her characteristics came out, eyes, mouth, her nose. She approached Zane face to face, puts her hand in to his right shoulder and started to move her mouth but Zane couldn't hear anything, he looked at her trying to figure out what she was saying then she stood up. She looks down at him, stared while her weapon changed from solid to a liquid black substance engulfing his entire body completely suffocating him and knocking him out.

With an intense rush of falling, Zane wakes up in desperation trying to breathe, and fall from his bead to the floor. He calms down, with ease he could breathe normally again, back at his apartment, on his ordinary room but something touched his head, he got startled and looks to his bed, he sees the same woman in lingerie… "Hey baby." Then, her face turned in to a demonic figure, manhandles Zane, carries him and slams through the wall, they appeared falling thousands of feet above the sky above Coruscant, but they were out of place, not in his timeline, Below them, a fleet of old Clone Republic warships fighting Separatist warships. She was aiming at one of the ships, holding Zane.

He couldn't do nothing, his heart, he could feel that he had seconds before he dies, he is trying to figure out what is going on, he is even thinking of him, he is about to die before he hits the ship, when they slammed through the warship, it was like if some other ship shot one of its strongest weapons, then everything goes in to darkness. Zane wakes up back at his apartment, no one was there, we was back at reality.


	2. Chapter 2 - The Siege

Zane woke up, with the desperation he knocks few objects from his night table. When he moved further up to sit down he hits the shelf above him, a large bottle of ale tipped over and spilled all over his bed. He grabs the bottle and stares at it, an expensive ale, already at one quarter full… across the room there are more bottles that he used to drown himself each night, lately, it is been affecting him on his tardiness to work and performance on anything, his work is at the shipyards for the local government as an engineer, Zalin, an independent world he lived on. Behind him a computer shows seven missed calls on the screen, five of them is from the office at the shipyard.

Zane stood up from the bed but ignored the communication panel and walked straight to the bathroom with the bottle in hand. Arriving at the sink, he stares at the sink for minute then looks upward to the mirror, his face instantly changed in to a more serious tone, forming a tighter grip around the neck of the bottle punches the mirror with it, injuring himself and falls back landing on the bathtub.

He falls asleep for about an hour but the injury at his right hand woke him up, he lift his arm revealing a puddle of blood in the bathtub. He tries to get out from the bathtub and goes straight where the mirror was, he clears the glass chards and grabs a med kit, Zane removes the pieces of glass out of his hand then sprays a foam on the skin then slowly the wounds started to close, healing to a certain point leaving slightly visible scars.

Zane grabbed the trashcan and pushed all pieces of glass to the bin, clearing the countertop. He exited the bathroom to find a little droid wiggling and waiting at the entrance of the bathroom, an MSE droid, also known as mouse droids, small but the model is capable of cleaning his whole apartment. "Hello… What's with you and all the excitement? … oh right, this." Zane looks back at the mess he made, the little droid makes a noise and moves a little closer. "Sorry about that, clean whatever you can and have the day off." The droid makes a few beep noises and quickly entered the bathroom to perform its duties.

Zane grabbed a thick black silk bathrobe, puts it on then exits the bathroom and heads directly to the kitchen, opens the fridge and grabs a large bottle of milk and starts drinking directly from it. Zane empties the first bottle. Grabs a second bottle then takes out a small container with leftover food and places it on the dinning table. Zane walks towards the window, lifts a cover that shows a small computer panel and presses a blue button, the windows started to move the blinds that shielded the room from outside, the sunset light started to shine through until the whole window is cleared.

From his apartment he could see the whole capital city that spans over three-hundred kilometers. A magnificent view, the spire of the capital headquarters is visible from his apartment, the spire stood tall, measuring almost 3 kilometers tall that could be seen kilometers away. His city hosts almost 93 million habitants alone out of 8.9 billion beings that live on the planet, populated with humans, humanoids of other species, and other type of beings that aren't bipedal aliens.

Zane was about to turn back away from the window when he sees various ships dropping from the sky, at the distance a building exploded, the ships coming from orbit are federation ships, an organization that appeared after the first order started to lose the war, also by the time the Republic started to gain power but the New Republic was also subjugated by the federation. They just surrendered.

Zane was around when the Federation appeared, they shot first and asked questions later. President Talon Adera Tel'Za, he never spoke when he appeared in front of the media, a human, dark hair with bright blue eyes, standing two meters tall way above a normal average of the human height, he stood there staring at the camera, but he started to flip a small circular object, when he flipped it for a third time he catches it and smiled, he just said one word… "Freedom. A gift from me." He said in front of many at Coruscant at the old senate building 23 years ago in the year 512 ABY.

The federation reached Coruscant with the largest fleet seen in history, outnumbering every clan and power in the galaxy as a combine effort with other powers of the quadrant. No one knew where they got the resource to produce many of their ships and the quantity and that surpassed the numbers of other powers that joined them, but that evening Talon Adera showed their power by destroying a First Order's Command Warship with a single blow from his flagship, the first order ship shields stood no chance of stopping the shot, it went straight from one side to another.

Later on he pursued a crusade to go against pirates, Hutts, Jedi, Sith or anything that stood in the way, specially anything that had to do with the old ways, he declared them as evil, a past of no freedom, a past with so many mistakes.

"Rinse and repeat." Zane said while looking at the ships outside and closed the blinds.

Zane sat down at the dining table and drank from the bottle. He kept thinking about the federation. Years after the settlement of power of the federation, things didn't go as Talos promised he was more of an erratic person. Zane at the end was marked with a bounty on his head, Talos had another agenda for the people who are cursed with the old ways, either way Zane didn't care for him, either for the federation nor the bounty. Talos wanted to use the ways of the force for his own army, his motto, join or die, or even do secret experiments bringing back old experiments that lords of the Sith have done many years ago.

When Talos met Zane months after the Federation conquered Coruscant, Talos made an offer, he offered to remove the bounty of Zane's head if Zane worked under him but Zane wasn't interested or even cared and ignored his requests, Talos reminded him that if Zane went against him or his federation, he will use the full force of his power against Zane and left it at that, at that moment Talos wasn't in a place of more leverage as everything could go south for him, same with Zane.

Zane stands, takes the food container and put it in the oven and sat back down to wait. Zane closed his eyes, takes a deep breather but his senses started to act up, he opens his right eye and looks to the right at the entrance of his apartment. The wall explodes, the force of the explosion throws every loose object to the other end of his apartment, one of the wooden coffee table flies towards him and stops it but he uses it as a shield to protect himself from the rest of the flying debris. Zane releases his grip on the table and stands up, the dust makes it difficult to see through the other side.

When Zane is about to use the force to clear the dust cloud, he sees two humanoid figures waiting outside. Zane tried to move towards his room but someone behind the dust cloud shoots a warning shot making Zane stop, he raised his hands.

"Zane Daroot, surrender!" A feline voice shouts from the other end.

"And you are?" Zane asked. A Kathar, a feline shaped humanoid and a ATR-80 droid came walking in.

"We are mercenaries and we come for your head." The droid said while he points his assault rifle at Zane.

"I see, how much is the worth this days for my head? Specially for a human head? By the way, you broke my bottle of milk." Zane throws the broken piece of the bottle at the Kathar's face said but the droid pushed Zane to his knees.

Another Kathar enters his apartment. Zane looks at her. It looks like she have been around picking fights for a while, and she had a habit on collecting trophies from her opponents to wear them. Her clothes are loaded with many objects. She started to speak while she shows a computer pad. "For a human, not much... But for a Jedi Knight, a lot."

Zane looks at the pad showing a picture of his face from ten years ago and a bounty of 1,000,000 credits. "What? Only One million? Are you serious? cheap bastards this days, back in the past a Jedi knight can go around twenty million per head or even more, one guy managed to pull seventy million. If I were you, I ask for more but you wont get that amount since I'm not that Jedi."

"You don't fool us Jedi." One of the mercs said menacingly. Zane tried to grab the pad. "Let me show you." Reaching the computer pad from the mercenary leader, Zane is hit with the rear end of the assault rifle.

Zane's face lands against the ground, and before he is lifted to his feet, he forms a fist in his left hand, he started to force choke one of the mercenaries and maintaining him still, struggling to breathe. The leader gives her data computer pad to the mercenary but the Kathar fails to grab it. "What is wrong with you?" She asked. The male Kathar points his eyes towards Zane.

She quickly grabs Zane and makes him stand up, in an instant Zane punches her in the face, continued by a backwards kick against the droid dropping its weapon then uses his force powers to push everyone away from him, the droid and the male Kathar are thrown in to the corridor outside of his apartment. The leader tried to stand up but Zane throws a combination of punches against her that knocks her out. He walks outside to the corridor, the male Kathar tries to get up but Zane won't let him by slamming his head towards the ground knocking him out. Zane sees the droid is about to pull a secondary weapon, using his force powers, he pulls out the assault rifle out of his apartment, catches it and quickly shoots at the droid, the rifle blaster packs a powerful punch and pushes back the droid, he kept shooting until the droid hits the glass, Zane quickly shoots the glass, breaks it and continued firing against the droid until the droid is thrown out of the window by falling down to the surface.

When Zane turns around, another droid appears out of nowhere, grabs Zane and lifts him, carries him to the window opening, Zane knew where to strike, using his right hand he pulls out a computer module that is somewhat accessible under the head of the machine and disables the motor functions of the droid arms, releases Zane but way too close to the window, the droid leaps to the precipice while Zane managed to grab the ledge but his right hand lands on the ledge while a large glass shard pierces through his hand.

Zane tries to pull himself up but the pain made it worse risking him falling, his whole body is being hold up by one piece of glass sticking out, even with his own powers he wouldn't survive the fall, he tried to use his left hand to reach a safer part of the ledge, by surprise two small hands grabbed his left hand, Zane got startled and sees a nine year old human, dark blonde little girl , he was relieved that it is Kira Lenner, daughter of Christian Lenner and Jan Wethers friends and neighbors of Zane.

"Kira! don't come to the ledge." Zane tries to push her out of danger.

"But you might fall, let me help you!" She shouted.

"No, if you try to pull me, you might fall along with me because of my weight. Let me figure it out and I will tell you what to do." Zane tried to convince her but she insisted by moving closer, but Zane notices wires around her body that are attached to a wall securing herself up, still Zane told her not to come any closer, with immense amount of pain he tightens his right hand and pulls himself his left hand.

"Hold on, don't come close, just stay there and when I land my leg push down to secure it." As Zane said, he makes another attempt, the leg lands and she grabs his leg then pushed down, Zane then lifts his entire body and goes inside safely while he pushed Kira to safety, Zane then pulls his hand out and curls up in the floor withholding the pain.

Kira stares at Zane but she didn't knew what to do, she tried to comfort him by touching his shoulder. "Are you ok?" She asked, but Zane started to rip a piece of his shirt and covered his injured hand then tore another piece to cover the stains of blood, he sits up and looks at Kira, he smiled while patting her head.

"You're a good sight for sore eyes. Thanks for the help Kira. Where are your parents?" Zane asked but she lowers her head. "My mom is at work and my dad was at home until the bad guys came in looking for him, I managed to escape to find you." Zane stood up and walks Kira towards her apartment.

"What makes you think I can help you?" Zane asked while looking through a corner connecting to Kira's apartment. She replied. "I know you're a Jedi and I saw what you did back there."

"What? I mean... what makes you think I'm a Jedi? they don't exist anymore." Zane insisted but she continued to believe that he is a Jedi Knight. "I'm not stupid mister, and a few times you tried to hide it and my dad insisted that I don't bother you with the topic but one moment that you were moving that red giant box few months ago to your apartment the cylinder fell from one of the shelves and almost hit you, then you used your powers to hold it in the air." She stared at Zane but he looked at her. "That… No, there is a hover device." But she mentions another thing. "Your silver box, I know the markings. The crown markings of the ancient Jedi. The box you can only lock and unlock with force powers." She described a silver box that Zane kept hidden on his walking closet.

"Wait, how do you know about that box? And how do you know about the markings on it… Never mind, I guess you wandered to the room the last time your parent were visiting. But you know no one can know I am a Jedi, because bad guys will try to hurt me or even the people I know to get to me. Will you pinky promise not to say anything?" He points at her while he showed his pinky finger. Then she continued… "I know, sorry, I'm aware of that federation guy is looking for all of you… but… yes, pinky promise." She formed the pinky truce by hooking her finger to Zane's finger.

"Now, I will go get your father, you stay here. This time I really mean it, I need you to be safe." She nodded in a positive manner.


	3. Chapter 3 - The Siege II

Zane walked towards the door of her apartment, Zane saw Christian restrained on the floor while two human mercenaries trashed the apartment looking for something. Zane still had the data computer pad from the other mercenary group, he wakes up the computer and puts first the name of Jan Wethers, Kira's mother, nothing important shows up but shows a connection to Christian Lenner in which he have a bounty of 70,000 credits, he browses through a series of bounties, he recognized a few people, each one with specific skill specialties same as Christian, Zane returns to Christian's profile, the description, class one engineer on the shipyards with the specialty on engines and core drives in starships specially in the development of the new hyper-drives.

Christian noticed Zane on the door, but Zane signaled him to stay quiet and stay put. Zane entered without making any sound then he sensed only two humans on the apartment, both are inside one of the rooms. Zane hid on another room, peeking out through the door he force pulls a small object and throws it against the floor, making a noise that both mercenaries hear and came out to see where the sound came from, with their backs against Zane, he sneaks behind both of them, he throws a kick on the left man and force pushed the other man outside of the apartment slamming against the wall.

Using one hand he punches the man near him knocking him out but Zane doesn't finishes there, without saying a word he put his right hand behind the man's head where his motor function of the brain is, then releases after 10 seconds, he stands up and heads towards the second man outside of the apartment. The man is scared trying to move away from Zane, he tries to pick up a blaster but Zane pulls it off his hands using his force powers. Then the man remembers that Zane was the Jedi on the computer. "Oh no, you're that Jedi, please don't hurt me."

Zane grabs the man's throat and says. "Ironic, being a Jedi, or Ex Jedi, no matter what I am… it will not stop me of doing something that you will regret, you picked the wrong building and the wrong day for this little job to come and mess around my home and the homes of this people." Zane stared at him with a serious face showing him he can hurt him. But Zane doesn't go that far.

"Shut up." He puts his right hand behind the man's head. Then the man 's face started to change until it became a soulless being with no emotions. "What... What are you doing?" The man's voice trembled until he stayed quiet and dropped a tear. Zane said. "You will go back to your employer, say you mistakenly fought a few guards, killed Christian and Zane all thanks of a grenade that your friend threw at them but Zane managed to survive the blast, somehow you managed to make a lucky shot at Zane and he fell through the window, you're the only sole survivor and the mission is a failure." Zane released the man, the man stood up and ran away carrying the implanted message.

A Jedi mind trick with its own variation, people that are force sensitive or force users that can perform a Jedi mind tricks, some have managed to go beyond tricking weak minds just by waving their hand against the person, but applying their hand to certain points in their head affects the nerve system around their body that connects to the brain, then they can implant anything they want by doing so, making people do things without knowing it or against their will, it can take a lot of energy depending on the user. And it can last longer if its performed correctly.

Zane shouts giving the all clear to Kira, she ran back to the apartment as Christian was undoing the restraints. She jumps out of joy and hugs her father and then jump back up and hugs Zane. Christian asks Zane. "What did you do to him?" Then Zane nods to not speak much about what he did in front of her and gave a simple answer. "Its nothing, just a simple mind trick. And she knows who I am, told her few minutes ago." Zane smiled.

"Oh... Finally she knows and now she can calm her inner child curiosity trying to know who you were." Christian said.

"I hear that Jan is at work?" Zane asked then Christian responded. "Yes, I got her call almost an hour ago asking me if we were fine, but yeah… she is fine for the moment but she said troops were storming the area, I was going to go get her until those mercenaries showed up, they didn't explained why they tied me up."

Zane showed him the computer data pad with his profile picture on it. "They are looking for a lot of people with different skills, and you where one of them?"

"How do you know if its people with skills they are looking for?" Christian asked.

"The batch I saw, they got something peculiar and specially in engineering of many fields. My case, a miserable one million for my head and also my skills and knowledge in power core reactors." Zane explained.

Christian continued "I see, but it says, wanted dead or alive, tripled if they captured you, it seems they are still hunting Jedi and anyone that is a force user."

"They are going against anyone that goes with the ways of the old era and forced everyone in to hiding, again… but of course this is a huge galaxy and lately they are using people that are force users. We need to move out of this place, there's a whole armada out there and for the looks of it, it doesn't look good. Grab everything you need that you can carry and we will find your wife and look for a ship for you to get on before they completely barricade this planet." Zane said while he walked towards the entrance door of the apartment.

"You, wait... aren't you coming with us in the ship, I will need you to fly it?" Christian asked.

"No, and… aren't you a pilot? Or you just don't want to get back in to it? And I will use the invasion as an excuse to steal my ship back." He smirks.

"Oh, using the invading force to steal back your impounded ship? Classy." Christian replied.

Zane shrugs. "I can't help myself. Meet me back at my apartment, I will get my things."

Zane departs and returns to his apartment, he grabbed an empty backpack that he left near the dining table, he heads to the closet in his room then unlocks a hidden compartment on the wall then he pulls out a small silver box, the one Kira saw outside back then. Sits on his bed, places the box on top. The box doesn't have any keyholes. It is made like it was never meant to be opened if no one knew what it was, only way to open it is by someone that is a force user, and by a specific person, when the box is first used, the user leaves an imprint, and that imprint serves as a password, only one user can open it. Zane waved his hand, the box changed its shape and opens.

Inside the box he sees some old belongings, a Kyber purple necklace that occasionally changes color at random and returns to its original color, few physical paper pictures and letters, then Zane lifts the cloth and sees his two lightsabers, grabs them then, each one of them he twists a section on the lightsaber's casing making it usable, then Zane feels a rush of the force running from his weapons same feeling when he first built his weapons, like if the light sabers spoke to him. Zane holsters his weapons around his waist then he places the box in his backpack, he quickly runs to the kitchen and grabs some necessary items for nourishment and hydration.

After finishing in the kitchen Zane returns back to the room and in to the bathroom, sees the broken mirror and rips it apart from the wall leaving exposed the storage compartment. He grabs a black bag and returns to the room, opens and takes everything out, in it there is some medical materials or more commonly known as a medical field kit.

As he had no time to take care of his worse wounds, he uses a temporary and faster way patch that sticks in his skin, when he uses it in his left hand the gel settles and turns in to a firmer form that is a little difficult to remove for three days but at least it gives him some functionality to his left hand. Zane finishes and everything that is in top of his bed stores it into the backpack. When he is about to change clothes, the whole building shakes violently, something hits the side of the building, he quickly grabs his things and runs to the living room, sees the bottles and anything loose move to one side of the room, the building is tilting to the south.

Zane runs to the window and opens the blinds, the horizon is turning, he looks upwards and sees the neighbor building is collapsing against his building, a ship comes to view, it is crashing against multiple building including his building. A Federation warship, then followed by one of the local defense starships, as it turns waiting for the enemy's ship to crash, from orbit it gets bombarded, they manage to hit the reactor and explodes, one of the large section of the hull hits an enemy ship nearby it, hits it in the engine sending it to a full craze slamming against the line of building nearby until it hits Zane's building various floors above him.

Zane's building lost its top section while the bottom rest its getting compresses in between two other buildings slowly crushing it. The room lost power, some dust makes it difficult to see far beyond the opening in his apartment. Zane slowly moves across all the debris and furniture. At random times the floor shakes and the noise from the metal could be heard clearly throughout the building.

"Zane!" Christian's shouted his name across the area. "Are you there, are you ok?" He asked. Zane took a while to respond. "Yes! Im fine, how are you guys doing?"

"We are alright, what the heck was that? Was that a ship piercing through our building?" Christian asked.

Zane managed to reach them. "Yes, one of their fights got very close to this area and an enemy ship crashed various levels up. We need to move, the neighboring building is crushing this building."

Christian looks at Zane's wounded left hand. "I see you that thing on your hand, does that work on that kind of injury? You need a med bot to take care of that."

Zane responds. "And now is not the time, but yeah it works for the moment. Are you ready?" Then Christian responded. "Yes, grabbed some clothes, food and supplies. How do you think we will get through this building?"

"My guess is, its going to be difficult to go through the lower levels because the structure is split in various points as of why we are tilting. We will have to jump across to the other most stable building that is against this one and go down from there. Later on find your wife and then find a ship." Zane said while he grabs his backpack and enters the nearby stairway. Zane looks back at both Kira and Christian. "Ready?" He asked and they replied in a positive gesture.

They had to go through thirteen levels above his floor, to the point where the building is closest to the other building, just before the destroyed section of their building. They reached the level and continued to the south corridor carefully making it to the end, the window section is against another level of the other building, Zane warned them... "Hold on tight, and be careful of any flying glass shards and your face." Zane said concerning of any injuries created by breaking the window.

Zane place his hand on the window and he tried to create an outward force but the window just shook. Building like this are constructed with windows that are made for strong weather at this altitude. Zane grabs one of his lightsabers, places it against the window and turns it on, the angle it had and position breaks the window completely and then he holds to the ledge, slashes through the other window across and breaks it. Zane surprises them when he started to lift them in to the air using his force powers and safely he placed them at the other building, afterwards Zane jumped and lands safely.

Finally at the other side they quickly move to the elevators, still functioning they enter and go down, in the middle of the descent the elevator shakes violently but no enough to halt it, when they reach to the lobby, the whole place is engulfed with dust, no visibility. Another building collapsed nearby.

"Stay here." Zane told them to take cover behind a desk in the lobby but also he makes the gesture for them to cover their faces against the dust. "I will verify the safest route out of here, I will come back for you." Both ducked behind the desk peeking around the corner watching Zane walking to the exit as Christian makes makeshift masks to protect themselves from the dust.

Zane could see dead people nearby, through the dust he uses his senses if there's someone at the distance. With his quick reflex engages his silver lightsaber and deflects back the shot that came from the distance and hit the soldier that shot at him. Kira saw it and got exited but her father had to pull her down for her safety, and another shot was aimed at them but missed.

He turns off the lightsaber and takes cover behind a damaged hovercraft outside of the building, looks around, it was getting dark, the storm was moving quickly to the area. The wind was helping a little to see further down the street. As some of the dust cleared Zane could see Christian and his daughter, he signaled them to come closer behind one of the large columns in the lobby. Zane moved further down and takes cover, he hears something but couldn't react quickly and he is pushed against the wall by a sonic pulse.

A large bipedal battle mech drops from above cracking the concrete, when it stands, it measures roughly ten meters tall, then arms popped out. "Stop it right there, Jedi." The pilot shouted through the speaker of the mech then grabs a giant section of the hull revealing a giant sword but the edge had a different color, a darker metallic grey color. Then it started to rain heavily.

Zane engages his silver lightsaber and posed in a defensive stance. Zane waited and the battle mech made the first move, charges directly against Zane, Zane does the same, he runs, when the giant sword came very close to Zane, he leaped in to the air and strikes the sword while he is in the air but his lightsaber went through without doing any damage to the mech's weapon.

Landing on the ground Zane sees his lightsaber getting unstable to the point it just turns off and cannot turn it back on. In his mind he knew some of the metallic elements that cause a lightsaber to shut down, and the color confirms it in the giant sword. Is composed of an alloy called Cortosis, a metallic element that can cause a series of effects against each type of energy, as it can disperse it, absorb or disrupt any source of energy that comes in to contact against it. As for lightsabers, it can temporarily disrupt them. The battle mech strikes again but Zane is late to react, he is impacted by the right hand of the mech and sends him in to the air slamming against a tree in the plaza but in the process he loses his lightsaber.

The battle-mech moves closer but stops, looks down, the pilot sees Zane's weapon. "Well, well, well, a handicapped Jedi." The pilot moves the mech and crushes Zane's lightsaber with the mech's right leg. Then the pilot started to laugh and is heard through the loud speaker. "Ooops, my bad." Uses the leg to kick it to him but Zane charged against the mech without hesitation, the pilot sees him but he underestimates Zane. Zane jumps in to the back of the battle mech, making it difficult for the machine to grab Zane, he grabs his other lightsaber and engages it, a very bright pure orange comes out and pierces through some of the primary hydraulics of the machine, he continued to move to the front of the cockpit and slices through hitting the pilot and instantly killing him, Zane jumps off of the machine and the mech drops to the ground.

When Zane defeated the mech, more trouble came soon after, soldiers from the federation started to shoot at Zane from the distance, another platoon flanked Zane from another side, deflecting some of the shots, he retreated back to the building he came from, on the way he grabbed what was left of his other weapon and puts it in his backpack, reaching to the lobby he couldn't see Christian or Kira, kept looking until he hears a whistle at a far distance. Zane sees them, Christian points to a safer location, he followed them to another building.

"Zane, that was so awesome on how you took out that battle mech." Kira welcomed back Zane jumping out of joy.

"Thanks, lets save the celebration for later, more soldiers are not far behind, we need to take the lower junction route towards your wife's workplace. Longer but safer." Zane said while they sneaked to the rear reaching to an access were it leads to the underground service ways until they reached one of the junction hubs, dangerous if they were active during normal operations.

Christian sees something and tells Zane to follow him, he reached a panel at one of the platforms, pressed a series of buttons and the wall started to move revealing a huge storage room behind it, a service mobile platform comes out. "Tada… Now we can go faster to my wife's workplace." Zane jumps in to the platform and then helps Kira and Christian to get on board. "Nice, never knew this things were stored in the junctions." Zane said, then the area started to shake violently, they didn't felt the jolt as they are floating on the air but the lights of the access ways lost power. A reactor in the exterior was hit.

They traveled through a series of tunnels until they reached a nearby access way that connects to one of the buildings that Jan worked at. They used a lift that worked with backup power and entered the cargo area of the building, they could see soldiers moving boxes to transport vehicles, Zane asked Christian where was the main lobby, they see an emergency route map and planned his entrance to the area, Zane told Christian to stay put. One by one Zane knocks down each soldier and secure each entrance of the cargo bay to stop any possible entry points for the enemy.

Once the area is secured, Christian and Kira moved in, Zane grabbed a blaster, Christian also grabbed an assault rifle. Zane told them to stay behind until he secured the area, Zane scouted the corridors and reached the lobby. He quickly finds the people that worked for the corporation, medical and bioengineering.

A series of metal support ran through the ceiling, there are various spots that could conceal him. He jumps, finds a good spot to see everyone and he quickly manages to find Jan, a dark red headed woman was with the rest of the people. The soldiers have everyone rounded up in the lobby waiting for bigger transports to move every civilian. Things started to be complicated, he notices one of the soldiers call another unit in which the soldier is having trouble getting a response.

Christian heard the call back in the cargo bay… "Unit One four six seven, come in, what is the problem, come in." He quickly picks up the transmitter from one of the knocked soldiers and answered. "This is unit one four six seven, come in." Replied trying to imitate a voice at random. Then the soldier started ranting. "If I call you, you better answer quickly, understood! Now! Status report."

Christian replied. "We are almost done, give us 10 minutes. Over and out." He looked at Kira and shrugged with a surprised face, Kira just hold her laughter. Zane continued to look for any opportunities and finds one at the entrance, two statues stood tall at the entrance, as he could push them, but also a great quantity of soldiers are stationed in that area, if he planned it correctly he could for the majority of the forces outside of the lobby. Zane sits in a safer position and started to pull both of the statues, when they broke from the base, the came down quickly and the soldiers couldn't react quickly.

Everyone's attention is now focused of the noise from the statues, he starts from the rear, forced push the first two soldiers by knocking them against the wall, he shouts ordering everyone to stay down, he throws his engaged lightsaber in to the air and hits five more soldiers that were across the room at both sides. Then he forced push the rest of the soldiers outside, some of them went through the windows. To secure the hostages behind him, he focused his force powers by collapsing the entrance roof, blocking the way inside.

"Christian, get the hostages, the lobby is secured, use the small transports to move them and soon I will give you the coordinates for the rendezvous." Zane spoke through the transmitter. Then the transmitter explodes, it was hit by a single shot at a distance, a woman commander, pale skin and dark hair, at first she looked weird and a sense of DeJaVu, but of course she wasn't the woman of his nightmares. Zane looks at her but she shoots again, Zane react to it in time by falling back. Soldiers started to corner Zane and trap him.


	4. Chapter 4

Christian finds his wife with the rest of the group at the lobby, with excitement kisses her like its been years he hasn't seen her, caresses her face trying to see if she was fine, Christian tries contact Zane but fails to do so, he told everyone to get on the transports and escape while Zane handles the troops, everyone left by their own accord, Christian is the last to leave, before he left he went back to the lobby and tried to look through the collapsed roof of the entrance but couldn't see nothing. "We need to go." He told Kira and Jan and continued… "He knows what he is doing, lets go and find a secured location, and wait… We will come back and search for him later." They left.

"Nice reward we got on our hands, a Jedi. Talon will be pleased." The woman commander shouted, paused and then continued "Surrender and we will try to… spare your life. Aim!" Raising her right hand , every soldier pointed their weapons against Zane. By surprise an explosion on the background created a distraction that Zane needed, he acted quickly, he charged against the closest soldiers. Everyone shot while Zane deflected each shot with his lightsaber, one by one fell, half of the battalion taken cared, he used one of the soldiers as a shield while he moved to take cover behind a metal sculpture and shoots back at them with the blaster he took from another soldier. Zane has now a clear way, with less soldiers to handle so he could take on the commander, he re-engages his lightsaber and starts plowing through each one of them, shooting and slashing.

The commander maintained her distance as Zane hold with one hand the blaster and the another his lightsaber pointing it at her, she test him by shooting at his legs but Zane deflects it, her serious face said it all, she wasn't pleased with the situation she is in. "The nerve, specially the fools get beaten by a…" She paused and took a closer look at Zane's attire. "A man in a black… is that a bathrobe?"

"Silky smooth, not the first thing in mind but at least I get to beat you in the most comfortable way. Do you like it?" Zane shows off his bathrobe but she grunts in anger. "You filthy bastard…" She continued on her attack against Zane, her great marksmanship kept him at bay manipulating his movement, he deflects almost every shot but the last shot hits his right shoulder and then another lands hitting his blaster. Surprising Zane she throws her blaster and pulls an energy staff baton and strikes, she shouted at Zane "Lets try this, our skill at swordsmanship as blasters are of no use with that laser sword of yours." They are locked in between pushing each other's weapons, once he knew where she was directing her effort Zane pushed her back and gaining momentum, she quickly shouted… "Just die already!"

Zane and the commander engaged each other with a series of combined attacks with their own combat style, Zane ended with the advantage in combat and strikes both her knees with superficial cuts, when she fell, Zane sensed something coming at them from another location, he sees a blue energy blaster shot coming from behind her and hits her directly on her head by killing her instantly.

He had to take cover quickly, Zane hides behind a small wall. The Sniper at a distance tries to take a shot at Zane hitting the corner of the wall, the sniper tried for a second time but it reveals its location to Zane, he sees a smoke grenade on one of the dead soldiers nearby, he charged and slides hiding behind another object, grabs the grenade and throws it towards the path of the incoming fire, it detonates creating a cover for him to move, on the way he grabs another soldier's assault rifle and takes cover. Through the smoke he quickly aims and hits the window were the shooting is coming from. Once the smoke cleared he sees a shadowy figure jump down from the window, Zane figured that it wasn't a normal person by jumping down from that height, eleven floors down to the ground.

Zane retreats to find a better location to keep watch at whoever is shooting at him. He kept watching for a minute or two, then someone sneaks behind him with a blue lightsaber pointed at him. "Stand up." A six foot tall man with light brown short hair instructed Zane. Zane just raised his hands and said. "Hello Gabriel. Nice way to hide yourself without me sensing you." Zane smiled at him just to annoy him. His name, Gabriel Dun, Almost the same age as Zane, he was part of the same enclave of the order at Talosis, same generation when they entered as padawans.

"Wipe that grin out of your face" Gabriel's said as he continued to point his weapon at Zane and gestured at Zane to stand up. Zane stood up and continued to smile just to annoy Gabriel even more. Zane spoke… "You still at it or have you grown out from your stupid little attitude?" Zane lowered his hands and tried to leave.

Gabriel stood in front of him blocking his way. "I wont let you leave." But Zane insisted by challenging him… "Make me! Or I will break… wait, I will make you a deal, lets duel for it. Show me that you have outgrown yourself and defeat me, an I will give my self to you so you can serve me in a silver platter to the leader of the federation, but if I win… Maybe I can offer you and if I'm in the mood, I'll probably kill Talon."

"Fine!" Gabriel shouted and he instantly attacks, Zane parried and counters but misses his attack, both of them stared at each other trying to figure a way to land a hit. Gabriel shouts in anger and Zane blocks each attack but pushes Zane back, cornering him in to a dangerous ledge that leads to a lower section of the city few hundred feet below. Knowing he is about to fall he quickly leaps in to the air, he uses Gabriel's head as leverage to push himself behind him, throws a kick at Gabriel but doesn't manage to push him to the ledge. Zane noticed Gabriel growth over the years, the last time he faced him was at Talosis Jedi temple on a training match, since that day Gabriel's attitude towards Zane changed in to a sour tone but Zane made matters worse when he kept poking at him by testing his limits.

Gabriel continued the attack, mounting the pressure, the way he attacked pushed Zane to his knees, slamming his weapon down with each strike, his face just showed more anger. Zane remembered the same details of his face, the same anger. It was way before any grudges that Gabriel had towards him, he carried the burden and anger for a long time when he lost his sister, one of the situations he lost control off, his showed his anger to everything or everyone, even to the people that tried to help him, he was trapped in his own dark world.

Zane didn't let him get the upper hand in the fight, while he is on one knee against the floor, he parries the next hit with greater force making Gabriel stumble. Zane punches him directly in the knee by reducing Gabriel's mobility and swing his weapon but missed. Out of desperation Gabriel uses his electrical shock power against Zane.

Zane didn't knew he could use that type of attack. Zane slowly fell to the floor grunting and in pain but Gabriel said "Look at what you made me do. This anger, they should pay." He started to loose it and Zane could see it. Zane stopped grunting when he heard him, he didn't say anything not made any noise as he stared at Gabriel. Then he gets up and said "You damn fool." Zane said in anger while literally spitting his words. He extends his arm with open fist, then an energy sprouted from within engulfing his arm in a dark, purple, and red aura. He unleashes it against Gabriel, the energy followed the path of the electricity nullifying it, when it touched Gabriel's skin, it created a force feedback that sends Gabriel flying to the back and falling to another lower section of the plaza.

Gabriel shakes violently on the ground trying to control the pain as if he started to have some sort of convulsion, the energy inside him spreads through the nervous system. But Gabriel wasn't the only one being affected by the energy, Zane started to show signs of some side-effects caused by using that type of power, his skin on the arm change in to a yellowish color.

"Enough!" Zane shouted at him but Gabriel tried to pick up his weapon, Zane sees it and force pulled his lightsaber, he threw it to the side with anger. He approached Gabriel and stared in to his face while he is on the ground. "Just hear this and shut it, get a grip and grow up, you get mad just because I make fun of you? Or you just going to get mad from anything is thrown at you? Get your act together fool, because if you don't get your act together you will be next and won't be able to see her, if you pull this stunt again I will make sure I finish the job and kill you. Understood?" Zane stood up, force pulled the lightsaber he threw away and slams it in Gabriel's chest. "Take it! I'm done!" He walks away.


	5. Chapter 5 - A new prospect of one future

Zane went to search through the commander's corpse, he looked for a computer pad, he hacks it and gains access to it. Gabriel could barely move and approached Zane, this time with no hostile intentions. Zane chose to ignore him while he looked through some information, Gabriel asked "Can you forgive me?" Zane kept ignoring him as he kept looking through the computer pad. "I know, my attitude was bad, now and then and way before I met you, I've been bad to the people that have told me various times to get my act together, and worse, to the people that have tried to help me, but I just wanted to vent out my frustrations. Why hold my emotions. I lost many people and the only person who cared for me died while I couldn't do anything to save her, it is my own damn fault." He holds a memento that his sister gave him.

Zane stops, he stares at the sky for a minute or so. "I'm sorry, I knew about your situation but I kept pushing you to the wrong direction, I tested your limits of how far you could hold it. I've been on the verge of falling, with negative emotions and being sensitive of the force, it flows according to what you want it to be, even see the purest darkness in the universe, it can consume you, hurt the people you love, not even the Sith know how bad it can turn you, its doesn't give you strength, it gives you misery, failure." Zane dropped his head and takes a deep breath. "But if you're willing, I can show you something that might help you with your sister."

"I'm not going to forget her!" Gabriel frowned assuming that Zane wanted him to forget her. But Zane looked at him. "No, not that, I wouldn't do that to you. In the contrary… Is more like a way to commune with your sister." Zane smiled a little. Gabriel face changed and responded. "What? To commune, how? How do you know how to commune with those who left? Wont that take years?"

Zane smiled "No, for you it might but if you're willing, you just need to be in sync with the force and those who were close to you might appear through the force, technically anyone can do it if they put the effort. But that will be for another time, I need to go."

Gabriel tried to walk and follow Zane but fell to the ground. "Wait. What in the world was that? What did you do to me?"

Zane stopped and responded… "It's a little secret, you have to ask the Monks of Le'Hos Nah for the details, they are the ones that knows about this little magic trick. And I suggest not using it, can cause some serious side effects specially for any force user as of why they created this to fight off those with the power of the force that tried to do harm on them. Don't worry, you will be ok just like me when I first used it." Zane took another computer pad that he took from the mercenaries and started to input some texts, then gave him the pad to Gabriel with a mad and a message, Zane left and leaps back to the upper section of the plaza.

Gabriel looked at the pad, the message was with a map that point in to a building near the capital spire. "You can join me or alone get a ship in this place, me, I'm out of this planet until things calm down, you should do the same if I were you."

Zane returned to the building, he took a longer route to the hangar as the entrance to the lobby was blocked by the roof he collapsed. When he reached the hangar, no one was there, Christian managed to evacuate the people that were in the lobby. Zane tried to reach Christian through another transmitter but no response. Transmitters have a location chip, Zane used the computer pad to locate them, searching through the history he traced it to a location a kilometer away. The location is accessible with the hover platform they used to reach Jan's workplace. Zane went below and travelled underground until he reached a residential complex, it's architecture was ideal to hide various aircrafts from outside view.

When he reached the entrance he is surprised from behind. "Freeze!" A little girl shouted, Zane raised his hands playing around and turns, Kira finger points her finger at him and shoots him. "Bang!" Zane dramatically falls to the ground. "You got me." But she continued. "That was too easy, now you're laser sword will be a fine addition to mine." Zane kept playing by making the sound of the lightsaber. "No you won't" and plays, sword fighting. Her father was watching. "Never knew that this is how you train to be a Jedi." Christian said but Zane looked at him, "I usually ignore sith lords, attack him my young padawan." Kira ran and plays with her dad, he picks her up and hugs her. "You got me." Her father said snuggling her.

"Well, well… It seems that you guys are having a blast without me. By the way, thank you very much Zane for taking care of those guys back there and helping them." Jan came around the corner and said hi to Zane. "Now what? My husband said that you had an idea to get a ship but you're not coming with us?" She asked. Zane responded. "Yes, I will not be going because I want to recover my own ship, but my plan is that you get one of their ships in this location." Zane showed a map on the computer pad and continued… "There is a temporary forward base located near the square at the hub station five kilometers away and the reason of getting you a ship from their fleet is because of the identification protocols and codes, you can use it to skip through the blockade and jump away, if I'm not mistaken we are various hours away before they change the security codes of the fleet, we need to act fast. Also, it is very dangerous for you guys to tag along with me, if you die, I don't know how I will get through with it"

They prepare to journey through the city to reach the forward temporary base.


	6. Chapter 6 - Dangers within

In orbit around Zalin, Three battleships and two destroyers continued to maintain the blockade around the planet, near them, they have captured various Zalin starships leaving them mostly intact. One of their main objectives is acquirement of their technology and to use it with their own. Up to date, Zalin starships lacks the firepower to confront the federation ships but with their new improvements on their power cores and hyperdrives it could lead in to a new and more sophisticated weapons system that could triple their output and that's what Talon wanted, to capture those who worked in the departments of research & development, and engineers. The new discovery on another source of fuel and energy, still without a name, it could provide more than needed, with this combination, the margin of power output could increase from forty six percent to eighty one percent capacity.

But they had another agenda for Zalin, unknown to most but with the help of Zalin's own people withn the ranks have disabled the autonomous interplanetary defense grid that consisted on eighty percent of the defense force, the rest in personnel, one of the responsible was the leader by cowardly giving in on the demands of Talon Adera. When the navy fleet personnel knew of his treacherous actions, they went against their leader and fought through against the enemy invading force but failed.

Talon Adera's flagship jumped from hyperspace followed by a dreadnought warship, but not any typical warship, the dreadnought carried something special and sinister but he was hiding it from the rest of his own army and fleet, only a few and Talon knew the purpose of the warship. Then it was followed by three more cruisers jumping out of hyperspace escorting Talon's new little toy. Everyone on the fleet saw it surprised by their arrival and the new design on the dreadnought. Even the Admiral that commanded the seventh fleet wasn't made aware of it.

Admiral's name, Atkin Zarenel. He stood from his chair looking though the command bridge windows wondering. "What in bloody hell is that? call command and ask about the situation on hand." Atkin never had the liking of Talon when he started to used old tech, specially dangerous old technologies that can be dangerous for them. But also Atkin knew that Talon had a bad habit on putting many on the dark and being wreckless.

The communications officer signaled Atkin. He vocalized in silence that it wasn't command, it was Talon that wanted to speak with the Admiral directly. Atkin nodded and turns to his station. A holographic image showed the face of Talon. "Yes Admiral?" He asked, he looked like he had better things to do than to speak with his own command officers.

"May I ask about the dreadnought that jumped out of hyperspace escorted by three cruisers and the flagship? Central command has failed to informed us of any changes in tactics and strategy, specially on the use of a new design… that." Atkin indirectly tried to reference of him using dangerous tech, still he couldn't confirm the true purpose of the dreadnought, also expressing his displease.

Talon responded, giving a vague explanation. "As to the mission of the dreadnought, it is not of concern. But you will keep on with the original mission, and don't get in the way of the Legion, enjoy the view Admiral, this will be a spectacle." Talon ended the transmission.

Atkin wasn't satisfied, the Legion is mostly a group of special generals and commanders that are the right hand of Talon, even is the officer from the Legion have the rank of Captain, they can go above Admiral Arkin, he is approached by Elia Noris from behind, she is captain of the Zeu , the Battleship they are in. She asked him in a low tone of voice "What do you think he will do?"

The admiral sat down on his chair, thinking. He looks at the captain, nods for her to come closer. "Something bad, something that many have done, I have no clue on what is in that ship but have the ship ready to jump away just in case things go south."

"Sir, to let you know, I will stay by you on anything that you do, I also want to protect my crew." Elia told the Admiral. Atkin looked at her, silently looking at her eyes. "You do know that is grounds for court-martial? Do you?" She nodded, but he continued reassuring her position on the situation. "Don't worry, I'm a man of sense, lucky it is me you're talking to, just have your ship prepared for anything."

"What about the other ships?" She asked.

"That will be handled accordingly and in the best opportune moment, as Ol'hare and Galish could be troublesome." He said while pointing two problems if they leave the system without order from central command, and both, captains of their own ship, Ol'hare a Rodian with serious compulsive behavior and Galish, a human woman that always have issues with many, a trouble maker. Atkin never liked them when he first met them.

Elia left his side. Atkin's mind was revolved on the subject of the dreadnought. Then he had something in his mind, to confirm some suspicions he approached one of the sensor technicians. "How good is our sensors?" He asked the technician but the woman couldn't figure out what he was getting at.

He sat down at the nearest chair and talked to her in a low voice manner. "Sorry, do you think our sensors can penetrate the dreadnought?"

"Yes, it supposed to, can we get in trouble if we scan the ship?" She asked.

"Yes but isn't there a method to do it without them know we are scanning them? I ask because I want to know if we are at risk of danger." Atkin asks her.

"We might try to do a passive scan, of the whole area first, unless we do a more intense search for the whole area including the dreadnought, making some excuse we had to do a scan for the whole area of a possible cloaked ship." She gave a possible solution. Atkin told her in a higher tone of voice to do a search of the whole area for possible escapees on stealth ships.

Unknown to them, one of the officers across them heard the conversation, he had an active audio recorder device, after they finished speaking he hid the recorder.

The radar technician, at random, she scanned various areas, performing a sweep at the dreadnought, she also had her earphones on, when the scan hits once specific section above the main core reactor, she received a spike in the readings, she got startled from the high pitch noise, she jumped from the chair. She continued, scanned the rest of the area and the planet, after finishing she called the Admiral.

He approached her, she gave her earphones. "Sir, this is weird, I got this from above the power core of the dreadnought."

He heard the noise, told her once more to repeat it. He asked if she could slow down the playback of the noise, she nodded, pressed few buttons and signal him to hear it. The noise became a static white sound and at five seconds in, the signal spike became a rough high and low pitch noise that formed a pattern, at first he thought someone is speaking as if someone mumbled some words. Atkin gave back her earphones and asked her what she thought.

When she heard it, she is even more confused. "I don't know sir, unless there is some sort of new system that is interfering with the scan and gave us a feedback, or we just detected some weird person talking to us. Also it should have not detected anything, they have jammers active, the dreadnought is the source of their jammers, they are jamming us and the enemy."

"That's what I thought, as if someone was speaking, I will try to think a way out of this but this is putting my hair… my hair is freaking out" He rubs his neck while feeling goosebumps all over. "As for this… continue to analyze that and see if you find anything new."

The Admiral went back to his chair, a blonde haired young man, the second in command approached the Admiral, he also had the curiosity of knowing what is going on. "Sir, I overheard what you were doing back with the radar technician, have you found out what is on that ship?"

The Admiral responded. "We are inside a mystery that I can't explain on what I heard over the audio, for now we should concentrate at the tasks at hand. What is the status down at the…" Atkin is interrupted as one of the communications officers shouted. "Sir, trouble at the main capital at Zalin, there is a huge explosion at the main military installation near the capital. And…"

The officer was interrupted by the woman at the radar station. "Sir, defense grid is coming online."

As she said, defense platforms at the surface of the planet measuring twenty meters wide by fifty-five meters In length came from under the ground and targeted the enemy fleet, each one are equipped by three magnetic railguns capable of defending the planet by any means.

"Evasive maneuvers, what is the reach of those defense platforms?" The admiral asked as he sees the captain returned to the command bridge.

One of the tactical officers give an estimated answer. She set the range to a far distance on the screen of and said "Roughly one point one million kilometers, further on they have a steady decrease on their accuracy."

He approached the captain "And we don't have that reach, you have command of the ship captain, get me tactical overview of the planet's defense system." He pointed at the holographic map of the planet.

The fleet receives the first volley of attacks. Their warship gets hit, the dreadnought also is hit but the damage done is miniscule compared to the rest of the fleet. Atkin noticed the defense platforms takes some time to reload. He tells the captain to bombard at the coordinates he is inputting to the computer.

"Prime orbital cannons, charge turbo lasers to target surface targets." The captain ordered, but she saw the dreadnought is just sitting there and commented "What are they doing just sitting there, Admiral Atkins, do you have command over that ship? We can't handle the whole planet by ourselves."

Atkins nodded and approached the communications station, pressed one of the buttons that communicates through all channels. "This is Admiral Atkins, to the main dreadnought in front of us doing nothing, I'm ordering you to eliminate the defense platforms at the surface!" but no response, they are ignoring his command, he repeats for a second time but his orders are ignores once more. He also noticed Talo's flagship, it was doing nothing.

Then they receive a message directly from Talon. "Admiral, you are responsible of the safety of the Dreadnought and the flagship, do your duty."

Before he tried to cut communications Atkin responded. "Sir, with all due respect, those defense platforms outnumber us and I also requested the fifth fleet to be with us as those platforms have a range of one point five million kilometers and can destroy our ships, I do suggest for that dreadnought to engage the targets and remove the threat quickly. We can't handle this alone."

"The dreadnought mission is none of your concern Admiral, protect it and I expect you to resolve the little problem of the planet in a quickly timed fashion." Talon cuts his transmission.

Atkin punched the computer panel in anger, but another little problem surfaced, the man that was recording Atkin's conversation with the radar technician approached the captain. "Sir, I wish to report Atkin for subornation, disobeying Talon's wishes, I have evidence." He showed the recorder to her.

The captain stood up, walked around him and took the recorder device. "Nice job officer, Admiral, it is true that you will be a problem to this crew or Talon's wishes? OR is it true that you're breaking our law?" She told him, while Atkin stood up firm and looked straight without saying anything. Then the ship is hit by one of the rail guns from the surface, the command bridge shakes violently. The captain took this advantage kick the officer on the face, she knocks him out cold with one hit. She ordered to stabilize the ship while he ordered the security officers "Tie him up and put him on the brig." She breaks the communication device. "And for the rest of you, I've been captain for many years but, in this ship, it's people and it's crew is first, you are my priority. Those who risk my ship and my crew is not ok in my book, and if I have to defy that guy, then it shall be! She pointed at the dreadnought visible from the command bridge making her point that she will defy anyone to protect her own people.

"And Admiral, lets finish this and end this incursion, if you may wish to report me and court martial me after the battle, be my guest." She sat down on her chair with a firm look on the objective.

The admiral returned to the station that showed the map of the planet and said, then responded "What officer?" he made his point of forgetting the whole situation by glimpsing to his back at her and return his attention towards the map.

They weren't done, more trouble arises when three Zalin starships dropped out of hyperspace navigating their ships in between the enemy invading fleet and the planet.

The largest one, a Zalin Battleship, engaged against four enemy ships including Atkin's ship, While the other two engaged Talos fleet.

Back at the planet, Zane, Jan, Christian and Kira could see the whole fleet engagement. After the activation of the defense systems, the planet ground defense forces became active as Zalin troop force consist of twenty percent non-autonomous force, those eighty percent that are autonomous consist on drones and machines for all terrain and air combat. One mayor flaw when they built it, anyone can take it down. As Christian flies the transport through the city he asked Zane "This is getting a little dangerous, do you think we should approach the base?"

Zane approached him while carrying a bag filled with officer uniforms from the enemy as he planned to sneak in by impersonating an opposing officer. "You're right, things are getting dangerous still we need to find you a ship, coming with me is more dangerous than ever but I'm having second thoughts on leaving you to fend for yourselves. You will be caught by the cross fire. We might not need this after all. Lets head back and to the ship docks near the capital spire. My ship should be there."

"What do you mean, should? What if we find no ship, then what?" Christian stared at Zane. "Don't worry, my ship is there, that's what the records say." Zane said trying to calm Christian. "Don't give me a heart attack." He calms down and returned his attention to the front.


End file.
